The COVID-19 era “is going to radically push what the church is in the future,” the Rev. Dr. Jason Brian Santos told the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School Wednesday evening.
Opportunities abound for interfaith engagement, a pastor with the Des Moines Area Religious Council told a virtual classroom full of the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School students on Tuesday. All one must do is “step outside of what is normal for you and move into someone else’s reality.”
Having as much fun as they could via Zoom, more than 330 Presbyterians gathered from across the country and across borders for the opening night of Synod School Monday. They were treated to a childhood faith story from the Rev. Dr. Rodger Nishioka and laughed with — not at — a Synod School mainstay, the Rev. Burns Stanfield and his online band of tie dye-clad musicians.
Synod School, a Synod of Lakes and Prairies event anticipated by hundreds of Presbyterians each summer, launched Monday with thought-provoking online classes ahead of Monday evening’s virtual plenary gathering.
The Rev. Tom Willadsen of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, has become a fixture at the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School, where his classes are known for humor.
Willadsen, author of “OMG! LOL! Faith and Laughter,” which can be found here, spent 19 years as pastor of First Presbyerian Church in Oshkosh. There he organized monthly meetings of faith leaders in the community and served as organizer and master of ceremonies at an annual Interfaith Festival of Gratitude.
For David Barnhart, it’s the story — not his story, but the story of the subject.
“One of the things I love about the work that we do is that we don’t know where it’s going. We have no idea where it’s going and what the focus is,” he said. “What we try to do is work with the community and have them guide us and [the film] needs to go wherever it needs to get.”
Civility is easy when we’re in our comfort zone, but civility becomes more challenging as we move away from that easy place. But that’s what we need to do — and there’s a way to do it.
That was part of the message Dr. Deirdre “Dede” Johnston brought to this year’s Synod School when she addressed civility in a time of incivility as the midsummer ministry’s convocation speaker.
The Rev. Tom Willadsen of Oshkosh, Wis., has become a fixture at the Synod of Lakes and Prairies’ Synod School. The Synod School connection, when one thinks about it, is likely caramel rolls. Willadsen, hands tucked snugly into plastic gloves, personally distributes the sweet treats to breakfast diners on those days the caramel rolls are available in the cafeteria. But he’s also known for his classes, and the classes are known for humor.
Civility is easy when we’re in our comfort zone, but civility becomes more challenging as we move away from that easy place. But that’s what we need to do — and there’s a way to do it.
The Synod of Lakes and Prairies is home to 16 presbyteries and nearly 800 churches, all of them in the upper Midwest. One of its presbyteries, Dakota Presbytery, is considered non-geographical but is the oldest presbytery west of the Mississippi River.
